Voloshyn Gallery participates in the Dallas Art Fair! This year at our booth at the Dallas Art fair we will present works by Nikita Kadan, Lesia Khomenko, Vlada Ralko and Oleksiy Sai.
Nikita Kadan presents his works from the series "National Landscape". In his series, Nikita depicts the landscape as a witness to blood, murder, and human abuse. The author proposes to comprehend the mass violence of the past and to find one's identity in the darkness of history.
Nikita Kadan was born in Kyiv in 1982. In 2007, he graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, where he studied at the Department of Painting in the Monumental Art Workshop under the guidance of Professor M. Storozhenko. Author of sculptures and installations, paintings and graphic works. He is a member of the R.E.P. group of artists and the curatorial and activist association Khudrada. He lives and works in Kyiv. Represented Ukraine at the Venice Biennale in 2015. Awards: Kazimir Malevich Prize, 2016; Future Generation Prize (special prize), 2014; Main Prize, PinchukArtCentre Prize (main prize), 2011; Shortlisted for PinchukArtCentre Prize in 2009 and for Future Generation Prize in 2012. The artist's works are in public collections: Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; M HKA - Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp; mumok (Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien); National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kyiv; Arsenal Gallery, Białystok; Military History Museum, Dresden; Contact Art Collection of Erste Group and ERSTE Foundation, Vienna; The Art Collection Telecom, Berlin; The Kingdom of Belgium, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, FRAC Bretagne*, Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Centre Pompidou.
In her series of paintings "Vernadsky's Dacha" Lesia Khomenko is interested in historical memory and emphasizes the local context. The series of paintings depicts the house of academician Vernadsky on Butova Hill near the village of Shyshaky, where he worked on the theory of the noosphere. While working on the paintings, Khomenko used archival photographs of the academician's estate from the Shyshaky Museum of Local Lore. Later, during a trip there, the author took her own photos. However, this place is overgrown with trees. "Among these modern thickets, I had a feeling of being lost, unrecognizable, and this was the basis of the work," the artist says in her description. The manor becomes an imaginary place: in the paintings, the house is covered with thickets. In the foreground, there are poplars, according to legend, planted by the scientist himself. There is also the author's body in a tank, deliberately enlarged to the size of the trees. This third element of "misunderstanding" seems conceptually unjustified and only confuses the story of the work. Moreover, the story prevails over the form in the project.
Another work presented is by Lesia Khomenko from the series "Personal vocation". "Personal vocation" is a term coined by Hryhorii Skovoroda, an idealistic philosopher who believed that every person has a predisposition to a certain type of work and that happiness lies in the work to which a person has a natural inclination. Lesia actualizes this concept today and tries to introduce it into the field of critical discourse, to contrast it with the still relevant today notion of "alienated labor" according to Marx. The figures of the workers are inscribed in the format of the paintings in such a way that the picture seems to be "too small" for them. Their feet are on the edge of the painting, their heads are squeezed into the corner. Sometimes, the head does not fit at all. For the artist, this formal method is a metaphor for the social and economic conditions in which workers have to work today.
Lesia Khomenko was born in 1980 in Kyiv, where she lives and works now. In 2004 she graduated from the National Academy of Art and Architecture. She has been a co-founder and member of the R.E.P. group since 2004 and the Hudrada curatorial union since 2008. She was a resident of the Center for Contemporary Art at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 2005-2006 and a resident of the Leipzig International Art (LIA) project with the R.E.P. group in 2008. His works have been exhibited at many solo and group exhibitions, including the main project of the Kyiv Biennale Arsenale (2012), the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the White Box Gallery in New York, MUMOK in Vienna and Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw. Lesya Khomenko was nominated for the PinchukArtCentre Prize (2009, 2011, 2013) and the Future Generation Art Prize (founded by Victor Pinchuk) within the R.E.P. group in 2012.
Vlada Ralko presents her series "Signs". In her works, the artist raises questions of identity, current social and political contexts, plunging into the existential depths of pain and suffering of the collective body. Vlada Ralko's Signs series is one of the most important in her practice today. The works in the series deliberately did not contain a clear reference, at least on the surface. In 2008, when the artist was working on the works, she seemed to anticipate the question "What does it mean?". Instead of explanation, she offered the absence of context as an element of vulnerability and challenge at the same time. Ralko is trying to turn the audience 180 degrees, to create a kind of vicious circle where every question is questioned because of the lack of an answer. This "something" was a kind of tear or damage to the body from the inside and thus appeared on the surface.
Vlada Ralko was born in 1969 in Kyiv. She graduated from the Ukrainian Academy of Arts (easel painting department - Professor V. Shatalin). She has participated in numerous reputable exhibitions of contemporary art in Ukraine and abroad, including personal projects at Art Kyiv 2007, Art Moscow 2007, Art Kyiv 2008, Art Kyiv 2009, Art Kyiv 2010, Art Kyiv 2011. Since 1994 he has been a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. In her work she raises the issues of identity, current social and political contexts, pain, intimacy, and suffering. She was awarded the All-Ukrainian Triennial of Painting (2001) and the CCN Graz Scholarship (2007).
In the works presented at the Voloshyn Gallery stand, Oleksiy Sai develops the ideas of his large-scale Excel-Art practice project. Sai has been working with Excel as a visual language resource since 2004. In the abstract language of formulas, charts and graphs, the author sees the only possible way to talk about the monotonous life of office workers. It is important to note that Sai creates an emphatically neutral, objective representation of the reality of office workers in all its manifestations: the artist does not intend to criticize the office "lifestyle" or create a caricature of it. Sai prints the images created in Excel on aluminum sheets and signs each work by hand. Despite the obvious ease of replication of the images, the originals of which exist in electronic form, the artist creates only one copy.
Oleksiy Sai was born in 1975 in Kyiv, where he lives and works. He graduated from the Kyiv Art and Industrial College with a degree in graphic design in 1993 and from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in 2001 (easel graphics department). He was nominated for the PinchukArtCentre Prize in 2009. The author is active in exhibitions. Oleksiy Sai has participated in many group and personal projects in Ukraine and abroad. His works have been exhibited at Black Square Gallery (Miami, USA), Saatchi Gallery (London, UK), Bunsen Goertz Gallery (Nuremberg, Germany), PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art (Perm, Russia), etc.
Maksym and Yulia Voloshyn opened Voloshyn Gallery in October 2016. In 2015, the Voloshyns were included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. The gallery specializes in contemporary art and showcases a wide range of different media of contemporary art, holding solo and group exhibitions.
Voloshyn Gallery presents a diverse exhibition program, as well as collaborates with institutions and independent curators to implement projects both in the gallery space and beyond.
We present to the international public important names of the contemporary Ukrainian art scene, including: Nikita Kadan, Lesia Khomenko, Mykola Ridnyi, Vlada Ralko, Mykola Karabinovych, Zhanna Kadyrova, Oleksii Say, Yevhen Samborsky, Kateryna Lisovenko, and others.
One of the main priorities of Voloshyn Gallery is to participate in leading contemporary art fairs. Among the international fairs the gallery has participated in over the past two years are: The Armory Show, Vienna Contemporary, Dallas Art Fair, Pulse Art Fair, Nada Miami, Untitled.Art, and EXPO CHICAGO. Zhanna Kadyrova's solo presentation by Voloshyn Gallery received the Pulse Prize (2018), and the project was also recognized by the curators of Perez Art Museum Miami.
Voloshyn Gallery has been a member of the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) since 2020.
